Small footprint, high-performance silicon capacitive accelerometer with a 3-D process

F. Maspero (1) , S. Delachanal (1) , A. Berthelot (1) , L. Joet (1) , G. Langfelder (2) , S. Hentz (1)

1 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information
2 Polytechnic University of Milan

A new process for multi-layer MEMS is presented and demonstrated with an in-plane accelerometer. With this solution, sensing elements (here, comb-fingers) and seismic mass can be fabricated in different layers and located on top of each other for a significantly reduced footprint and enhanced performance: both can be independently optimized. For this first demonstration, we show an intrinsic noise floor of 7 mu g/root Hz, mechanical stiffness of 20 N/m, large bandwidth and a sensitivity of 5.3 fF/g with a total footprint of 400 mu mx600 mu m.

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]

F. Maspero, S. Delachanal, A. Berthelot, L. Joet, G. Langfelder, et al.. Small footprint, high-performance silicon capacitive accelerometer with a 3-D process. 31st IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), Jan 2018, Belfast, Ireland. pp.109-112. ⟨cea-02188043⟩